Malaria
Overview
Malaria is a disease in RimWorld that can be contracted by colonists in any biome, but it's easier to contract in the jungle. General symptoms include impaired consciousness, blood filtration - and eventually pain, vomiting, and impaired manipulation. Advanced symptoms include frequent vomiting along with a loss of consciousness, and death.
As there's no reliable way to calculate the time to develop immunity due to Malaria's nature, the figures are calculated assuming 94.7% blood filtration (the 'average' blood filtration throughout all stages of the disease), giving the closest possible to a perfectly accurate result
If left untreated, Malaria can kill the affected person in 2.701 days from discovery.
Good treatment can slow the disease to the point where it will take 16.444 days to kill.
It takes around 3.819 days to develop immunity to Malaria; assuming the affected colonist is rested in an ordinary bed for the whole time, has nothing else affecting blood filtration, is well-fed, and under the age of 40.
Stages
Minor (Hidden) - Severity: 0 - 0.62
- No effects on the affected colonist
- Buildup to the 63% head start that Malaria has.
Minor - Severity: 0.63 - 0.77
- -10% Blood Filtration
- -5% Consciousness
Major - Severity: 0.78 - 0.9
- Vomiting every 1.5 days (36 hours) on average.
- +30% Pain
- -20% Blood Filtration
- -12% Consciousness
- -8% Manipulation
Extreme - Severity: 0.91 - 1
- Vomiting every 0.75 days (18 hours) on average.
- Loss of Consciousness
- +30% Pain
- -22% Blood Filtration
- -10% Manipulation
- Death
Progression
- When not immune, severity increases by 0.137 per day.
- When immune, severity decreases by 0.27 per day.
- Immunity increases by 0.12 per day when sick.
- Treatment slows progression by a maximum of 0.1145 per day.
- This means the disease will progress by 0.0225 per day at this rate.
Overcoming Malaria
It's especially important that affected colonists are rested while they fight off Malaria due to its effect on Blood Filtration, and that you have plenty of medicine and a skilled doctor in hand. As with any other disease, you'll also want to make sure that the patient is well fed, and that they're promptly treated.
Administering Penoxycyline instantly boosts immunity to 61%, though this is not useful as malaria has a head-start of 61% before being detectable.
Treating Normal People (<40 Years Old)
You will need at least 36% average treatment quality in order to sufficiently slow down Malaria's progress to the point where it doesn't kill the patient.
The following combinations of doctoring skill and medicine are capable of achieving 36% treatment quality (assuming a perfectly healthy, unmodified doctor, the patient is rested and well-fed at all times, and treatment is administered immediately) - you'll generally want to aim above these thresholds for safety though; these combinations are just the bare minimum required, and aren't guaranteed to work out:
- Level 1 Medicine and Glitterworld Medicine
- Level 4 Medicine and ordinary Medicine
- Level 7 Medicine and Herbal Medicine
Treating the Elderly (80+ Years Old)
As standard, you'll need to be more generous with doctors and medicine to ensure that old colonists survive. You will need at least 65% average treatment quality in order for the affected individual to have a chance of surviving. Again, this is a bare minimum and you should generally look towards more potent combinations than the following in order for guaranteed survival:
- Level 3 Medicine and Glitterworld Medicine
- Level 8 Medicine and ordinary Medicine
- Level 15 Medicine and Herbal Medicine
- Deadly diseases
- Flu • Infection • Lung rot • Malaria • Plague • Sleeping sickness • Organ decay • Blood rot
• Infant illness
- Non-fatal diseases
- Fibrous mechanites • Gut worms • Muscle parasites • Sensory mechanites • Paralytic abasia
- Animal diseases
- Scaria